Motion Picture Daily (Apr-Jun 1948)

2 Motion Picture Daily Tuesday, June 29, 1948 Personal Mention CHARLES M. REAGAN, Paramount distribution vice-president, is due here from the Coast. • Henry A. Linet, Universal-International Eastern advertising manager ; Al Horwits, Eastern publicity manager, and Charles Simonelli, Eastern exploitation manager, were in Philadelphia yesterday from New York. • Jack Cohn, Columbia vice-president, accompanied by A. Schneider and Leo Jaffe, will leave here tomorrow for the Coast. A. Montague and Joseph McConville will leave here on Friday to join them. • Dore Schary, RKO Radio production head, has cancelled his trip to New York from the Coast. Perry Lieber, studio publicity chief, is here from Hollywood. • Fred Meyers, Universal-International Eastern division sales manager, will be in Cleveland today and in Pittsburgh on Thursday from New York. • George Hickey, M-G-M West Coast sales chief, will leave here today for his headquarters, with stopovers at Denver and San Francisco. • J. Robert Rubin, M-G-M general counsel and vice-president, returned to New York yesterday from Durham, N. C. • Leo F. Samuels, Walt Disney Productions sales executive, has left New York for Atlanta and Dallas. • Carol Brandt, M-G-M Eastern story head, will return here today from the Coast. • Leonard W. Brockington, vicepresident of Odeon Theatres of Canada, is in England from Toronto. • Abel Green is due back here today from Europe on the SS Queen Elisabeth. • Rudy Berger, M-G-M Southern sales manager, is due here today from Washington. • Leo Seligman, Favorite Films treasurer, is in Toronto from New York. Coyne Not Severing All TO A Connections Robert W. Coyne will continue as a member of the executive committee of the Theatre Owners of America, as well as consultant, after his resignation as executive director becomes effective, about July 15. He has tentitive plans for a New England vacation, to return here about Sept. 1 to assist in arrangements for the organization's convention in Chicago on Sept. 24-25. Insider's Outlook By RED KANN THIS becomes a slight adventure outside celluloid boundaries. David Kay, president of Shell Products Co., Inc., of New York, sees it as his public duty to pay for advertising in New York newspapers in which he gets off his chest his views of various problems besetting this harried world. In pursuit of such a program, the other day, his byline led off comment on a letter from Harry Rowson, pioneer of the British industry, recently published in this column. Rowson had argued quietly enough against a public boycott of English films here on the ground this might excite enough British opinion to strike for a complete elimination of U. S. pictures from their most important overseas market. In rebuttal, we remarked the actions of individuals — many, perhaps— should not be misunderstood in London as necessarily reflecting the attitude of the American people at large. More emphatic was the rebuttal which made it clear the organized industry here was not party to such a campaign. ■ Kay, who is a most discerning person in our book because he saw fit to describe us as "a celluloid oracle in filmdom," nevertheless accuses us of having gone diplomatic by trying to pour oil on troubled British waters. He believes the boycott is gathering momentum and will "spread until that squirming government of yours, [Rowson's] wakes up." Kay may turn out to be right, but we reserve the right to think otherwise. Joe Skeptic, always down-toearth, seems to have placed a convincing digit on the whole situation with a few choice observations : "Boycott against British films? Why take the trouble? Their films are boycotting themselves. Anyone who has bothered to sit through most of the recent imports knows it." ■ The 45 per cent quota on British exhibitors, already approved by the House of Commons and up for consideration in Lords today ; has set in motion a chain reaction against Britain, her films and, chiefly, Arthur Rank, which continues to blaze with indignation and intensity. It has revived that executive school of thought which looked upon the Johnston-Mulvey acceptance of the 75 per cent ad valorem tax settlement with little enthusiasm and argued it would have been better to cut off shipments until the wails of British exhibition crescendoed into a roar which the Labor Government could not ignore. It was responsible for substantial opinion giving considered thought to a complete withdrawal from the English market until the realistic cousins there appreciate how realistic the realisms can be. This movement is understood to have been spearheaded by Grad Sears who temporarily abandoned hospitalization to attend a meeting of the MPAA at which the situation was discussed. He failed to win his point, largely due to counter argument set up by Spyros Skouras. But between the two extremes of the situation Barney Balaban walked out of the session as an expression of his disapproval of Skouras' exhortations of moderation and was persuaded to return only at Sears' behest. This points up a split which may show up again any moment now. Reverting to a viewpoint recently emphasized and thereafter ignored, Andy Smith, Jr., general sales manager of 20th-Fox, is telling his U. S. selling crew : "Our hopes that the foreign market would substantially improve this spring have failed to materialize. Rather, conditions are seemingly more complicated than ever and calculations of only several months ago furnish absolutely no barometer of what may be earned abroad in the light of recent Governmental and other developments in the past few weeks. • "With the erasure of millions of dollars annually from foreign sources, the exhibitor must be prepared to take less and pay us proportionately more than he has in the past — if he expects us to continue to provide him with attractions of strong power. The exhibitor must be satisfied with a lower percentage of profits. . . . There will be no security for American companies until they have made themselves domestically independent of whatever happens in other lands." Hoffman on His Own George Hoffman, who for 12 years handled advertising and publicity for Arthur Mayer at the Rialto Theatre here, and who left there recently when new management took over, has returned from a stay at Virginia Beach, and started his own business. Vaughan Joins Cowan Hollywood, June 28. — Al Vaughan has resigned as publicity director of Sierra Pictures to join Lester Cowan Productions in a similar capacity. ^ NEW YORK THEATRES c — RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL — s" Rockefeller Center BING CROSBY JOAN FONTAINE in "THE EMPEROR WALTZ" | Color by TECHNICOLOR i A Paramount Picture ! SPECTACULAR STAGE PRESENTATION foranount present* jj-y JOHN FORD'S MASTERPIECE IN PERSON m LENA HORNE , Spec/aK L PAUL WINCHELL Extra! "FORI t„ APACHE"llMJMNlsi CAPITOL™'^' COOL greatest staronaVsong-showl ^ P„R,K°„ FIGHTING FATHER DUNNE PAT O'BRIEN Victoria r»mn DUNNE B'WAV ol 46th ST. JACK JAN IS -J . _ "k i CARSON • PAIGE I In Person | £ DON OORIS if DAD iDeFORE^DAY; CROSBY I I *^OM\SCt> °*>#AND THE ClOB IS S S*?ttHlGHStfAS>f ORCHESTRA t c.*t?AT".tV>« gflvs GALA SHOW 1 '/j A, MICHAEL CUBTII PRQ1>V -*" £ "SSSH'w STRAND/, OPENS 9:30 AM l*TE FILM *T MIDNIGHT ,| ILATE STAGE SHOW 10:15 PM • B'WAY AT 47thf MOTION PICTURE DAILY, .Martin Quigley, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher; Sherwin Kane, Editor; Martin Quigley, Jr., Associate Editor. Published daily, except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, by Quigley Publishing Company, Inc., 1270 Sixth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, New York 20, N. Y. Telephone Circle 7-3100. Cable address: "Quigpubco, New York." Martin Quigley, President; Red Kami, Vice-President; Martin Quigley, Jr., Vice-President; Theo J. Sullivan, Vice-President and Treasurer; Leo J. Brady, Secretary; James P. Cunningham, News Editor; Herbert V. Feckc, Advertising Manager; Gus H. Fausel, Production Manager; David Harris, Circulation Director; Hollywood Bureau, YuccaVine Building, William K. Weaver, Editor; Chicago Bureau, 120 South La Salle Street, Editorial and Advertising. Urben Farley, Advertising Representative; Jimmy Ascher, Editorial Representative. Washington, J. A. Otten, National Press Club, Washington, D. C. London Bureau, 4 Golden Sq., London Wl. Hope Burnup, Manager, Peter Burnup, Editor; cable address, "Quigpubco, London." Othei Quigley Publications: Motion Picture Herald, Better Theatres, published every fourth week as a section of Motion Picture Herald; Theatre Sales; International Motion Picture Almanac, Fame. Entered as second class matter, Sept. 23, 1938, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Subscription rates per year, $6 in the Americas and $12 foreign; single copies, 10c.